One might imagine that haunted houses are ancient buildings but this is not always the case.

Some years back, in the late seventies in London’s Hackney, the Borough Council was renovating its council houses, these were family homes built after the wars which provided cheap housing for British families and the many newcomers pouring in from abroad.

It was a sunny summers day and I was looking forward to finishing work, when the boss called me over saying I had a visitor.

I did not recognise him, but dressed in decorator’s overalls he had a sense of urgency about him as he explained that one of these council houses just could not keep its tenants. No sooner were they settled in than they wanted to leave, he said, all claiming the place was haunted. As one might expect the council took a dim view of this officially and put it down to some reason other than the supernatural.

According to my visitor, the tenants changed every three to four months and each time the council had him and his team in to decorate. So they knew the house well but they always felt uneasy there so would I come and look at it, he asked?

I said I would need a good reason to do so because as I was becoming well known for my expertise in the subject, the number of sceptics attempting hoaxes was increasing to the point of annoyance.

In answer, he explained that his decorating team had been forbidden to talk of the house’s problems, but this time they had gone through it quite thoroughly and had under the wallpaper in one room, found a painting of a goat on an upturned pentacle, with strange lettering underneath. Despite strict instructions from the council to paint it over, my visitor decided he wanted someone else to look into it.

So on the journey over to the house he took time to fill me in with its history. It was, I gathered, just the usual toxic building syndrome: families breaking up, arguments and unhappiness, a cot death, and one family’s aged father taking an overdose of sleeping tablets.

Nonetheless, I explained that the picture was likely the work of students playing pranks and that being the case it probably meant nothing.

However, I was in for a surprise. When we arrived I was confronted by an accomplished picture of a goat and whomever was the artist, it displayed an extensive knowledge of demonology and primitive witchcraft.

The picture was on a matt black wall while the floorboards beneath had a black tarry substance splashed over a small area. We took a decorators trowel and scratched off a piece, this covered a protective pentacle drawn on the floor, marked with stains which looked very much like blood stains.

I apologised to the decorator because until then I thought that this might have been a hoax but the picture and the chill feeling in that room particularly, indicated that I had been mistaken.

As I mulled over the picture, a chap in a suit and tie, with a clipboard and a hard hat marched in. “Who’s he?” he asked the decorator indicating me.

This, I discovered was the foreman and highly sceptical of any claims of the supernatural. Nonetheless, after a few minutes discussion between the decorator and his foreman I was asked to swear to secrecy and told to get on with it.

This was no place for an ordinary exorcism, every indication was that elemental forces were invoked and would have to be dispersed, very carefully. I explained that I would need to come back later that evening with several others to conduct a thorough analysis, before a cleansing through.

Sceptical as he was, the foreman agreed to let us in that evening and lock up after us when we had finished. So later that night, after ritual bathing fasting and meditation our group of 3 was let in by the foreman,

Once inside we lifted the floorboards only to discover the partly decayed bodies of several small animals. I shone the torch round apprehensively under the floor as statistically those who kill animals gravitate to toward children.

Relief must have shown on my face, as we collected up the anmals bodies into a black bag, because there was no indication of any human sacrifice.

In addition to the animal carcasses however, there was also a picture of Lucinda, sometimes known as Juno, or Diana the Roman god of childbirth. This can also symbolise birth into the next world, and it added to my concern about the actual purpose of the animal sacrifices.

As a rule the life force released in animal sacrifice is used to lure into this dimension, some lower entity, which from the protection of the pentacle can be projected to an enemy. The result of which can be utterly terrifying to those who are thus targeted.

The sacrificial site was further complicated by the fact that the animal carcasses appeared to have had their hearts and livers removed. This indicated the repulsive practise of eating these organs in front of the Goat picture, a practise that is believed by some Hebrew demonic schools to bolster diabolical powers and form an inner alliance with a demonic beast.

A similar form of flesh eating and blood drinking is seen in the Christian mass, where a priest turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Inverted, this same process is the basis of all black magic.

That the Jews follow the Old Testament and had deep knowledge of the black arts is beyond doubt. Each synagogue has a “Genizah” or place for special books, and this can be fully researched and although extremely rare ritual human sacrifices are still on record here.

Jewish scholars tell us that Rothschild’s refusal to buy the release of the German Jews was a form of this human sacrifice.

Our work at the house was still not finished though, all the doors and windows still needed to be left open in the sunshine. And the entire house still had to be scrubbed throughout with antiseptic and bleach, to achieve what is known as “Terrafah,” the Greek/Yiddish word for a spiritually cleansing.

While our team’s devout Muslim Samnan, an expert on “Jadooka” or Indian sorcery said his prayers and blessings; we left a small container of herbs smouldering in each of the corners, and splashed lavender and tee tree oil at the picture and the entrance door.

Some days later, I rang the decorators to ask if there had been any problems, and he said there had not.

Our team’s relief was palpable; we expected from the sacrifices that the life force would be transmuted into another dimension, which in turn would draw something unpleasant from the elemental kingdoms back into this one. Often a lingering essence can mean very bad vibrations left for some time.

We asked to be allowed back a few days later to observe but this was refused. However my supervisor at work said the decorator and his boss came round about 3 weeks later and dropped in a large bottle of wine and an envelope containing £20, a sizable amount then.

I rang his office to thank him in the morning to be told; “ there must be a mistake, the council does not allow exorcisms on any of its properties” So that was it, a big build up to nothing happening, we were very relieved

T Stokes paranormal studies lecturer

Taken from the original notes of Samnan Hussein, Richard Colt and David Tyndall.